An increasing number of vehicles are equipped with on-board navigation systems that display the position of the vehicle and surrounding streets, intersections, and other points of interest. Some navigation systems allow the driver to input or program a route. The navigation system then displays the position of the vehicle along the route.
In addition to displaying the vehicle position along a route, a navigation system can typically also display the vehicle location even when no route is programmed. In this case, the navigation system does not have a route that provides a context for the display. Some navigation systems that incorporate relatively large color display screens can display the vehicle location in the context of a detailed map reference of the surrounding area when no route is programmed.
Other navigation systems, however, incorporate smaller display screens. Rendering the vehicle location is difficult because the display screen is too small to display a map reference that is both sufficiently detailed and sufficiently free of clutter to be useful. For example, the map reference may be rendered at a sufficient level of detail, but contain so much clutter as to be unreadable from the position of the driver. Even with a relatively large display screen, some users may find a detailed map reference too cluttered to be useful. On the other hand, the map reference may be sufficiently free of clutter to allow the driver to locate the visual representation of the car, but lack detailed information as to surrounding streets. In either case, the driver does not significantly benefit from the map reference.